Same Old Song
by Ari Moriarty
Summary: A forty minute free-write, inspired and encouraged by Miss Hanamura. After Inaba, Rise's heart is too full for just one song.


**Author's Note: **Another forty minute free-write, this time based around a challenge from **Miss Hanamura.** I am to write a piece from the perspective of the P4 character to whom I relate the least. It was an easy decision as to which character I'd choose…so here goes.

**Same Old Song**

Rise was standing in the recording studio, feeling small in between all the equipment, the machinery, and the photographs of big name artists who had worked here in the past.

From behind the glass case that made her feel like a goldfish, the man with the huge blue headphones held up one hand. "Okay," he said, "Ready? One, two, three, four…"

The background music began to play, and Rise felt her hips swaying of their own accord, moving to the music in her head and all around her that had played for her so many times before. It was an old song, the same song, the most popular song that Risette fans went crazy for. This was an old studio, the same studio, a place where everybody knew her name and how she worked. She'd been here before, had been through these motions before. This high-stakes musical lark had once been her world, the place that held her up and helped her shine, and she'd reveled in the magic of being a real world big name star!

Now, after a year in Inaba, where she'd felt for the first time like a normal girl, everything around her felt so artificial and strange. She was on display in some creepy glass circus house, and the music coming out of the machines was a part of someone else's distant past. She wasn't Risette anymore, and the smiles that came naturally didn't look like the screen-ready twinkling grins that Risette had always been so ready to give.

"Hey!" called the man with the headphones, the ones that sat on his head and made it stick out and bulge out like some alien thing. "What's going on in there, are you paying attention? Come on, Rise, stay with me, here! Ready? Again. One, two, three, four…"

Again, the music started, and again it flowed in and out of Rise's ears like a familiar stranger's tune. It was a song about love, and the word "love" showed up in the lyrics over and over again. The song went "I love you, I love you, I'll always love you. I love you, I love you, I'll love you forever." For some reason, that didn't make sense to Rise anymore. There were so many different kinds of love, and she never knew which one she was supposed to be singing about.

There was love like the love that made her smile, the innocent and pathetic love that Kanji had for Naoto. Rise remembered the way he blushed every time would walk obliviously into the room, and the way his voice would get all husky and he'd start to stammer when he even thought about saying Naoto's name. That was a quiet, hesitant kind of love, the kind of love that you sang about with a smile on the edge of our voice. It was full of wonder, magic and nervous uncertainty, and you'd sing about it quietly so as not to break the spell. That kind of love had no instruments in it was love that was afraid of anything except to stand alone.

Then there was love like the love that made her proud, the kind of love that Yukiko and Chie had for their beloved home town. She could remember the stoic tones of voice that they'd used when they'd defended annoyingly quiet Inaba to those stupid reporters, and when Yukiko had admitted for the first time that there as something in her world that was worth not leaving behind. Though sometimes it took a long while to get going, that love was a brassy love, a brave love, the sort of love that you sang out to with trumpets and tambourines in the background, declaring to the world at large that you loved and loved and loved and would never let go, because there was something in that love that was more than a little worth protecting.

Then there was love like the love that made her cry, the kind of love that Yosuke had for Saki, the love that started gentle and innocent, then turned tragic and cold in the blink of an eye. It wasn't the kind of love that you sang about, and it wasn't even the kind of love that you'd ever look straight in the eye, but once it was out in the world, it made a mournful, desperate sound, like the shattered remains of the things you'd tried to hold on to but had to let go of anyway. That love was a delicate love, backed by a gentle, heartbroken piano melody, the kind you'd play alone in a dark room with a hat on and a pair of sunglasses to hide your face. That love didn't come out into the light of day, and you left it where it lay, walking away as you listened to the tragic refrain playing over and over in the back of your mind.

Then, of course, and this was the one that Rise tried the hardest not to think about, and had the least luck with, there was the kind of love that could have been, the kind of love that she had for Yu Narukami, the kind of love that made you want to get to know someone so well that that person became another part of yourself that molded into you and never let you go. It was an exuberantly hopeful kind of the love, the kind of love that rang out from your heart in great bursts of spontaneous song, the kind of love that was a first love and all the love you ever wanted at the same time. It was the kind of love that didn't need any music, because the music was already there, in your mind and in your heart, and it played a catchy lover's theme song for you with every step that you took on your way down the sidewalk streets to meet him. Rise couldn't' stop remembering and loving every minute of what that love had been like. She got lost in it sometimes, wondering what it would sound like in her mind if she had the chance to go back and see him again.

"Rise-chan!" shouted the man with the headphones, and Rise could see how irritated he looked with his alien head. "Focus, honey, come on! This isn't that hard!"

Rise wanted to tell him that it was harder than he'd ever understand. The same old song had so many different meanings and feelings behind it now, and she wanted to find one of them that she could really take to her heart and give back to all of her fans again. That was the least she could do, both for the fans and for the people she loved, in every way that a person could love.

"I'm sorry," she said instead. "Please, I'm ready this time. Let's try once more."

This time, when the music played, Rise didn't just sing. She loved, and let that flow out of her, because her heart itself was a song.


End file.
